insoluble
Americanadjective
-
incapable of being dissolved.
insoluble salts.
-
incapable of being solved or explained.
an insoluble problem.
adjective
-
incapable of being dissolved; incapable of forming a solution, esp in water
-
incapable of being solved
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of insoluble
1350–1400; < Latin insolūbilis; replacing Middle English insolible < Middle French insoluble < L. See in- 3, soluble
Explanation
Let a bottle of salad dressing stand on the table for a few hours and you will notice that it has separated into layers. That's because oil is insoluble or is not capable of being dissolved. Insoluble comes from the Latin insolubilis meaning "that cannot be loosened." When a substance is insoluble, it cannot be dissolved or loosened in water. Similarly, a situation that is insoluble has no hope of being solved. When a marriage is beyond repair and cannot be fixed, it is insoluble.
Vocabulary lists containing insoluble
Animal Farm
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Stories of Ourselves
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An insoluble puzzle may be how to give artificial intelligence agents complicated open-ended tasks—tasks that may have many unpredictable paths to a solution—without courting outcomes very much contrary to the intentions of the task giver.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
"You could run into the extremes of eating too much, where if you're not drinking enough water to hydrate and exceed the amount of soluble and insoluble fiber, you can get constipated," Lee said.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 8, 2026
It’s the counterpoint to Syd’s earliest argument for sticking with this insoluble endeavor: “Why can’t we put everything that we have into everything that we can?”
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2025
In mice, the ketone ester treatment resulted in clearance rather than pathological aggregation of insoluble proteins.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 2, 2024
Susan Calvin burst into body-racking gusts of wild laughter, “not dead—merely insane. I confronted him with the insoluble dilemma, and he broke down. You can scrap him now—because he’ll never speak again.”
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
